The French Bookshelf
Every month, we suggest a book to read during your spare time.
This month, we recommend:
Tristes tropiques
by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Paris: Plon, 1955.
The French intellectual Claude Lévi-Strauss died recently (October 30, 2009) at age 100. It is therefore only natural to dedicate this post of the French Bookshelf to the father of modern anthropology.
In his youth, Lévi-Strauss studied law and philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1935, he accepted a position as visiting professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo.
Lévi-Strauss lived in Brazil from 1935 to 1939--formative years during which he undertook ethnographic fieldwork, and which greatly influenced his anthropological studies. He was later drafted into the French army, but after the German occupation, Lévi-Strauss fled to New York where he taught at the New School for Social Research.
In 1948, he returned to France, and in 1959, he became the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France. Lévi-Strauss was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1973.
Tristes Tropiques, a memoir published in 1955, is the book that made Lévi-Strauss famous in France and worldwide. This work documents Lévi-Strauss's travels and anthropological work, focusing primarily on Brazil. Although a travelogue, the book is infused with philosophical reflections and ideas linking many academic disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, geology, music, history, and literature.
Tristes tropiques is available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
Past recommendations:
America
by Jean Baudrillard. Ed. and trans. Chris Turner. NY: Verso, 1989.
The main purpose of the French Bookshelf is to recommend French books
or books about France--good books, most of the time. But what about
curious, controversial, or utterly bad books? Don't they have their
purpose too, after all? If you are like us, you will enjoy such books
once in a while because they make you think. Baudrillard's America is one of them.
The New Statesman and Society calls Baudrillard's work a "collection of
wild, often hilarious postcards from his trip to America [which] contains some
of the year's most original and beautiful writing." Rolling Stone argues that although it is "occasionally provocative and almost always infuriating," America is definitely "filled with perceptive, almost poetic observations." Finally, the New York Times Book Review notes: "A mixture of crazy notions and dead-on insights, America
is a valuable (and voluble) picture of what Mr. Baudrillard calls 'the
only remaining primitive society' -- ours."
America is available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
Interpreting the French Revolution
by François Furet. Ed. and trans. Elborg Forster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981
The French Revolution is an historical event unlike any other. It is
more than just a topic of intellectual interest: it has become part of
a moral and political heritage. But after two centuries, this central
event in French history has usually been thought of in much the same
terms as it was by its contemporaries. There have been many accounts of
the French Revolution, and though their opinions differ, they have
often been commemorative or anniversary interpretations of the original
event.
In this book,
François Furet analyzes how an event like the French Revolution can be
conceptualized, and identifies the radically new changes the Revolution
produced, as well as the continuity it provided, albeit under the
appearance of change. Furthermore, Furet challenges the popular Marxist interpretation of
the French Revolution and reshapes French thinking about subsequent
events.
François Furet (1927–97) was one of France’s most respected historians. His books include The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century and Revolutionary France, 1770–1880.
Adapted from Amazon
Interpreting the French Revolution is available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
The Opium of the Intellectuals
by Raymond Aron. Ed. and trans. Terence Kilmartin. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977
Raymond Aron's 1955 masterpiece The Opium of the Intellectuals is one
of the great works of twentieth-century political reflection. Aron
shows how noble ideas can slide into the tyranny of "secular religion"
and emphasizes how political thought has the profound responsibility of
telling the truth about social and political reality -- in all its
mundane imperfections and tragic complexities.
Aron explodes the three
"myths" of radical thought: Communism, the Revolution, and the
Proletariat. Each of these ideas, Aron shows, are ideological,
mystifying rather than illuminating. He also provides a fascinating
sociology of intellectual life and a powerful critique of historical
determinism in the classically restrained prose for which he is justly
famous. The book will be of interest to all intellectuals, as well as students of French, political theory,
history, and sociology.
Adapted from Amazon
The Opium of the Intellectuals is available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
Past Imperfect
French Intellectuals, 1944-1956
by Tony Judt. Berkeley/Los Angeles: U of California Press, 1994
Swept up in the vortex of communism,
French postwar intellectuals developed a blind spot to Stalinist
tyranny. Albert Camus, who had been an authentic moral voice of the
Resistance, pretended not to know about the crimes and terrors of the
Soviet Union. Jean-Paul Sartre perverted logic to make an apologia for
the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Simone de Beauvoir called for social
change to be brought about in a single convulsion, or else not at all.
Foolish French thinkers, suffering "self-imposed moral anesthesia,"
defended the credibility of the show trials in Stalinized Eastern
Europe.
In a devastating study, Judt, a professor of European Studies
at New York University, argues that the belief system of postwar
intellectuals, propped up by faith in communism, reflected fatal
weaknesses in French culture such as the fragility of the liberal
tradition and the penchant for grand theory. He also strips away the
postwar myth that the small, fighting French Resistance was assisted by
the mass of the nation.
From Publishers Weekly
Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956 is available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
Désert
by J.M.G. Le Clézio. Paris: Gallimard, 1986
Le Clézio was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He has
been writing since age seven; after majoring in French literature, he
became well-known at age 23 with the publication of his first novel, Le Procès-Verbal (The Interrogation), which was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and for which he was awarded the Prix Renaudot in 1963.
Since then he has published about 30 books, including short stories,
novels, essays, two translations on the subject of Native American
mythology, countless prefaces and reviews as well as a few
contributions to collective publications. In addition, he is the author
of several children's books.
From 1963 to 1975, Le Clézio explored themes like language and
writing and devoted himself to formal experimentation in the wake of
such contemporaries as Georges Perec or Michel Butor. In the late 1970s
Le Clézio's style underwent a drastic change; he abandoned
experimentation, and the mood of his novels became less tormented as he
broached themes like childhood, adolescence, and traveling, which
attracted a broader, more popular audience. Désert belongs to this second period and it is one of Le Clézio's bestsellers.
(Adapted from Amazon)
Désert will soon available at the Baylor Library. Click here for the persistent URL.
Anti-Americanism
by Jean-François Revel. Ed. and trans. Diarmid Cammell. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003
This book, a bestseller in France, seeks to explain the root cause of the world's and particularly Europe's obsession with hating America. Jean-François Revel does not pretend that America is perfect. But he argues that the daily denunciations exceed the bounds of reasonable criticism. Furthermore, Revel says, European critics are quick to point fingers when they should be looking in the mirror. He attributes such inconsistencies to Europeans' desperate desire to "project our faults onto America so as to absolve ourselves."
Revel further finds fault with the anti-globalization movement. Though the movement claims to oppose inequality and poverty in underdeveloped countries, its true anathema is liberal capitalism, whose chief representative is the United States. The barrage of attacks will make it impossible for the United States to confer with European officials or take any criticism seriously. It is in Europe's interest, Revel says, to put aside its envy and consider a more constructive relationship with the United States.
Revel writes with a style at once informative and incisive. He possesses a sarcastic wit that is undoubtedly as irritating to his critics as it is endearing to his supporters.
(Adapted from Publishers Weekly)
Anti-Americanism is now available at the Baylor Library. Call number: E840 .R4313 2003.
French Philosophy of the Sixties
An Essay on Anti-Humanism
by Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut. Ed. and trans. Mary H. Cattani. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990
First published in France in 1985, Ferry and Renaut's book offers a wide-ranging and controversial critique of several leading figures in recent French philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of the French intellectual scene in the sixties, the authors sketch the characteristic features of 1960s philosophy and the links between this philosophy and the May 1968 student uprising. In successive chapters, they go on to examine Foucault's Nietzscheanism, Derrida's Heideggerianism, Bourdieu's Marxism, and Lacan's Freudianism, focusing in each case on these thinkers' respective critiques of the subject and humanism.
Focusing closely on selected texts, the authors' clear exegeses make a persuasive case against these current French "anti-humanists" that will be helpful and appealing to readers critical of contemporary French theory and challenging to defenders of recent French thought. (...) [T]his is an important work that deserves as wide a reading in the US as it has received in France. It will interest faculty and graduate students of philosophy and of French and comparative literature, and it will be accessible to undergraduates familiar with the literature.
(A. D. Schrift, Grinnell College-adapted)
French Philosophy of the Sixties is available at the Baylor Library. Call number: B2421.F4713 1990
French Theory
(How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States)
by François Cusset. Ed. and trans. Jeff Fort. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2008
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a disparate group of French thinkers achieved an improbable level of influence and fame in the United States. Compared by at least one journalist to the British rock ‘n’ roll invasion, the arrival of works by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari on American shores in the late 1970s and 1980s caused a sensation.
French Theory is the first comprehensive account of the American fortunes of these unlikely philosophical celebrities. François Cusset looks at why America proved to be such fertile ground for French theory, how such demanding writings could become so widely influential, and the peculiarly American readings of these works. Reveling in the gossipy history, Cusset also provides a lively exploration of the many provocative critical practices inspired by French thinkers, showing, finally, how French theory has become inextricably bound with American life.
(Adapted from the editor's presentation)
French Theory is available at the Baylor Library. Call number: B2421.C7913 2008 My personal thanks to Prof. Marie Level (MFL French) who recommended this book.
Tous les matins du monde
(All the World's Mornings)
by Pascal Quignard. Paris: Gallimard, 1993
Written by Pascal Quignard in 1991, All the World's Mornings was almost immediately adapted for the screen. The movie bears the same title as the novel, and it is the result of a collaboration between Quignard, director Alain Corneau, and the musician Jordi Savall.
Corneau had wanted to do a movie on music and the 17th century. He met Quignard, who had already written about the viol, and suggested that they do the story of Marin Marais (1656-1728), one of the best viol players and composers of the time, and his teacher Sainte Colombe. Quignard had discovered the music of Sainte Colombe through a recording made by Jordi Savall in 1976. Quignard wrote the book, Corneau adapted it and worked with Quignard and Savall to make the movie.
(From medieval.org)
The novel will soon be available at the Baylor Library—click here for the persistent URL. Click here to see an excerpt from the movie.
Grammaire des civilisations
(A History of Civilizations)
by Fernand Braudel. Paris: Flammarion, 1993
A leader of the Annales school, which reacted against the prominence of politics and personalities in historiography, Braudel wrote based on la longue durée, emphasizing the material basis of daily life—the routine workings of commerce as it changes over the long term. This outlook has gradually permeated the profession, and, as so often happens when a good idea proves unstoppable, its proponent takes a turn at textbook writing.
This is the late Braudel's 1962 lesson for French university students on the origin of European, Islamic, Indian, Asian, and New World civilizations. As a text it wasn't widely adopted, perhaps because France was then in a political uproar, pitting its colonialists—heirs to the civilizing mission of the nineteenth century—against decolonizers. And the book bears that sign of its time: The colonial motif pops up everywhere, presented as a timeless feature of ways of life in collision. So it was at the Battle of Tours in 732, which stopped the Muslim juggernaut; and so it is now in the anti-Western sentiments in the Arab world. Whether the conflict split religion and religion, town and country, or liberty and right, the colonial view benefits from Braudel's phenomenal depth of knowledge and synthesizing agility (...).
(From Booklist)
Grammaire des civilisations is available at the Baylor Library. Call number: CB78.B73 1993.
The Discovery of France
A Historical Geography, from the Revolution to the First World War
by Graham Robb. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007
While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
Graham Robb describes that unknown world in arresting narrative detail. He recounts the epic journeys of mapmakers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, and intrepid tourists, of itinerant workers, pilgrims, and herdsmen with their millions of migratory domestic animals. We learn how France was explored, charted, and colonized, and how the imperial influence of Paris was gradually extended throughout a kingdom of isolated towns and villages.
The Discovery of France explains how the modern nation came to be and how poorly understood that nation still is today. Above all, it shows how much of France—past and present—remains to be discovered. (Editor's Presentation)
The Discovery of France is available at the Baylor Library. Call number: DC20.5 .R63 2007
Histoire de l'Amérique française
by Gilles Havard and Cécile Vidal. Paris: Flammarion, 2005.
Gilles Havard and Cécile Vidal's book is a wonderful overview of the history of 'New France' (La Nouvelle France), in the broad sense encompassing all of North America (though not the West Indies), dominated by the French from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth.
This book sets out to change our perspective on the French presence in North America, which is not limited to Québec and Louisiana. Did you know, for instance, that millions of U.S. citizens -- from North Dakota to New Mexico -- bear French family names such as Archambault, Bissonnette, Boucher, Colombe, Dion, Pineaux...?
L'Histoire de l'Amérique française is available at the Baylor Library. Call number: E18.82 .H385 2005
For comments and suggestions, please contact Cristian_Bratu@baylor.edu
Readers might also enjoy Pierre Assouline's famous blog "La République des Lettres"
|  |
|
